"in Asia"" and expand the war to North Vietnam and Laos. The first Gulf of Tonkin incident occurred in territorial waters off the coast of North Vietnam. The destroyer USS Maddox, performing a DESOTO patrol, was engaged by three North Vietnamese Navy torpedo boats of the 135th Torpedo Squadron. In the ensuing sea battle, the ""Maddox"" expended over 280 3"" and 5"" shells, and four United States Navy F8 Crusader jet fighter bombers strafed the Vietnamese. There was damage to one US aircraft, one 14.5mm hit on the destroyer, 3 damaged torpedo boats, 4 North Vietnamese sailors killed and 6"
"regarding the incident. The use of the set of incidents as a pretext for escalation of U.S. involvement follows the issuance of public threats against North Vietnam, as well as calls from American politicians in favor of escalating the war. On May 4, 1964, William Bundy called for the U.S. to ""drive the communists out of South Vietnam"", even if that meant attacking both North Vietnam and communist China. Even so, the Johnson administration in the second half of 1964 focused on convincing the American public that there was no chance of war between the United States and North Vietnam."
"Role of the United States in the Vietnam War The role of the United States in the Vietnam War began after World War II and escalated into full commitment during the Vietnam War from 1955 to 1975. The U.S. involvement in South Vietnam stemmed from 20 long years of political and economic action. These had the common incentive of ending the growing communist domination in Vietnam. At the time, French forces, allies of the U.S., were backed by America — President Harry S. Truman provided progressively increasing amounts of financial and military assistance to French forces fighting in Vietnam. From"
"America aircraft temporarily covertly imported for the operation. The threat posed by North Vietnamese antiaircraft fire escalated steadily in northern Laos. This led to the assignment of the more experienced B Team Thai pilots to missions in northern Laos, with the less experienced Lao pilots flying their strike missions into southern Laos. The RLAF was now operating from Pakse and Savannakhet, as well as Luang Prabang and Vientiane. America officially entered the Vietnam War as a result of the Gulf of Tonkin incident on 4 August 1964. There was a prompt escalation of RLAF activities and losses as a result."
"Gulf of Tonkin incident The Gulf of Tonkin incident (), also known as the USS ""Maddox"" incident, was an international confrontation that led to the United States engaging more directly in the Vietnam War. It involved either one or two separate confrontations involving North Vietnam and the United States in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. The original American report blamed North Vietnam for both incidents, but eventually became very controversial with widespread belief that at least one, and possibly both incidents were false, and possibly deliberately so. On August 2, 1964, the destroyer , while performing a signals"
"would-be aggressor. Defending Vietnam's security against aggression from the North and from southern-based communist insurgency was a mission Washington initially perceived as requiring only combat support elements and advisers to South Vietnamese military units. The situation, however, rapidly deteriorated, and in 1965, at a time when increasing numbers of North Vietnamese-trained soldiers were moving in South Vietnam, the first increment of United States combat forces was introduced into the South and sustained bombing of military targets in North Vietnam was undertaken. Nearly eight more years of conflict occurred before the intense involvement of the United States ended in 1973. An"
"of Defense & Joint Staff, FOIA Requester Service Center ""Under Eisenhower"" ""Under Kennedy"" ""Under Johnson"" ""Under Nixon"" ""Under Ford"" Role of the United States in the Vietnam War The role of the United States in the Vietnam War began after World War II and escalated into full commitment during the Vietnam War from 1955 to 1975. The U.S. involvement in South Vietnam stemmed from 20 long years of political and economic action. These had the common incentive of ending the growing communist domination in Vietnam. At the time, French forces, allies of the U.S., were backed by America — President"
"to the American public as the political appointees it served. This change would have far-reaching detrimental effects. By 1968, America had officially been at war with Vietnam for four years, but U.S. involvement in Vietnamese affairs went back as far as the early 1950s, when France required aid from the U.S., as well as South Vietnam, essentially a puppet state of the U.S., in maintaining control over French Indochina, and public support of the war had begun to wane. In January 1968, Vietcong troops launched a surprise attack in South Vietnam, known as the Tet Offensive; one of the points"
"released in January 2008 by the National Security Agency and published by the Federation of American Scientists. Gulf of Tonkin incident The Gulf of Tonkin incident (), also known as the USS ""Maddox"" incident, was an international confrontation that led to the United States engaging more directly in the Vietnam War. It involved either one or two separate confrontations involving North Vietnam and the United States in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. The original American report blamed North Vietnam for both incidents, but eventually became very controversial with widespread belief that at least one, and possibly both incidents"
"1964, followed by the first American combat troops landing in Vietnam in May 1965, escalated the war. In mid-1966, the new CIA Chief of Station Ted Shackley promulgated increased operations against the Ho Chi Minh Trail and commitment of more troops to the fight for northern Laos. U.S. air power began to be used in Laos. The Royal Lao Air Force began its struggle to become an effective close air support force. A new covert unit, the Raven Forward Air Controllers, was formed to guide the air strikes. The use of airpower as mobile artillery to clear the path for"
"Tonkin incident of 2 August 1964 led to a dramatic increase in direct American participation in the war, with nearly 200,000 troops deployed by the end of the year. Viet Cong and PAVN strategy, organization and structure meant Westmoreland faced a dual threat. Regular North Vietnamese army units infiltrating across the remote border were apparently concentrating to mount an offensive and Westmoreland considered this the danger that had to be tackled immediately. There was also entrenched guerrilla subversion throughout the heavily populated coastal regions by the Viet Cong. Consistent with the enthusiasm of Robert McNamara for statistics, Westmoreland placed emphasis"
"committing large units to battle. The United States entered the war to prevent a communist takeover of South Vietnam as part of their wider strategy of containment. The U.S. was involved in Vietnam as early as 1950, when military advisors were sent to assist the French in the First Indochina War. The U.S. continued its advisory assistance to South Vietnam during the 1950s, with U.S. troop levels tripling in 1961 and tripling again a year later. U.S. combat units were deployed to Vietnam beginning in 1965 after the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which authorized the President to deploy U.S. conventional forces"
"the northern Democratic Republic of Vietnam, with other assistance rendered by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact communist satellites, along with neighboring People's Republic of China and North Korea. Larger escalation of the insurgency occurred in 1965 with the landing of United States regular forces of Marines, followed by Army units to supplement the cadre of military advisors guiding ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) southern forces. A regular bombing campaign over North Vietnam was conducted by offshore U.S. Navy airplanes, warships, and aircraft carriers joined by Air Force squadrons through 1966 and 1967. Fighting peaked up to"
"accord; the ceasefire was broken just days after its signing. In the U.S. and the Western world, a large anti-Vietnam War movement developed as part of a larger counterculture, the largest such anti-war movement up to that point in history. The war changed the dynamics between the Eastern and Western Blocs, altered North–South relations, and significantly influenced the political landscape in the United States. Across much of Western Europe and the U.S., ground-force intervention spurred the rise of transnational political movements and campaigning. Direct U.S. military involvement ended on 15 August 1973 as a result of the Case–Church Amendment passed"
"was used as a pretext for the United States to escalate Vietnam War efforts. During the operations on August 2nd, 1964, the USS Maddox provoked the North Vietnamese by entering restricted waters. Then on August 4th, 1964, it was reported that North Vietnam attacked two US ships, USS ""Maddox"" and USS ""Turner Joy"". The claim that the ships were attacked was later discovered to be false and in 2005 declassified documents revealed that both the CIA and NSA were involved in the manufacture of the incidents that led to US air strikes on August 7th, 1964. The Reichstag fire was"
"1964, the deteriorating political situation of the southern government after the assassination of President Ngô Đình Diệm, and an increase in Viet Cong large unit actions, the U.S. government decided to introduce American ground combat troops into Vietnam. On 8 March 1965, 3,500 U.S. Marines of the 3rd Marine Division landed over the beach at Da Nang to protect the airfield at Da Nang, now operated by the U.S. Air Force (, pp. 99–102) and (, p. 19). In the first five months of 1965, U.S. troop levels increase to 55,000. By the end of 1965, 200,000 troops had been"
"Joint warfare in South Vietnam, 1963–1969 In the Vietnam War, after the assassinations of Ngo Dinh Diem and John F. Kennedy in late 1963 and the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964 and the continuing political instability in the South, the United States made a policy commitment to begin joint warfare in South Vietnam, a period of gradual escalation and Americanization, involving the commitment of large-scale combat forces from the United States and allied countries. It was no longer assumed the Republic of Vietnam could create a desirable situation without major external assistance. This phase of the war lasted until"
"the United States' use of chemicals in Vietnam such as Agent Orange, a chemical compound which was used to clear forestry being used as cover, initially conducted by the United States Air Force in Operation Ranch Hand in 1962. In October 1967 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held hearings on resolutions urging President Johnson to request an emergency session of the United Nations security council to consider proposals for ending the war. In January 1971, just weeks into his first term, Congressman Ron Dellums set up a Vietnam war crimes exhibit in an annex to his Congressional office. The exhibit"
"efforts by the Communists in the North to unify the country, though neither administration established actual combat forces in the war. The U.S. role—initially limited to financial support, military advice and covert intelligence gathering—expanded after 1954 when the French withdrew. During the Kennedy administration, the U.S. military advisory group in South Vietnam steadily increased, with McNamara's concurrence, from 900 to 16,000. U.S. involvement escalated after the Gulf of Tonkin incidents in August 1964, involving two purported attacks on a U.S. Navy destroyer by North Vietnamese naval vessels. Records from the Lyndon Johnson Library have perhaps indicated that McNamara misled Johnson"
"their utility. Although the initial American commitment to the war in Vietnam had been limited to advice and materiel support, by 1964 there were 21,000 US advisors in South Vietnam. However, with the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) weakened by successive defeats at the hands of the communists, the South Vietnamese government faltering, and Saigon threatened with a major offensive, the worsening situation led to a significant escalation of the war in 1965, with a large-scale commitment of US ground troops under the command of General William Westmoreland. At first the Americans had adopted a cautious strategy, applied"
"directed to take over action until 1957 or later. Before that, they were unquestionably recruiting and preparing. While the visible guerilla incidents increased gradually, the key policy decisions by the North were made in 1959. Early in this period, there was a greater degree of conflict in Laos than in South Vietnam. US combat involvement was, at first, greater in Laos, but the activity of advisors, and increasingly US direct support to South Vietnamese soldiers, increased, under US military authority, in late 1959 and early 1960. Communications intercepts in 1959, for example, confirmed the start of the Ho Chi Minh"
"derived from political ideology (i.e. the Cold War) considerations that largely transcended Vietnam. United States involvement in Vietnam was driven by many factors, including: ideology, Cold War strategy as well inheriting a colonial legacy from the 4th Republic of France, one of its major allies. There were two major drivers: anticommunist considerations and anticolonialist considerations. Where there was little risk of Communist involvement, for example, in the Anglo-French Suez Canal adventure of 1956, against Egypt, the United States would often intervene forcefully—even against their strongest allies—on behalf of the principles of self-determination and sovereignty for all nations. In the closing"
"officers and 500 members of the armed forces. An estimated 600 rebels were killed. Civilians accounted for the remainder. The Vietnam War was a war fought between 1955 and 1975 on the ground in South Vietnam and bordering areas of Cambodia and Laos (""see"" Secret War) and in the strategic bombing (""see"" Operation Rolling Thunder) of North Vietnam. American advisors came in the late 1950s to help the RVN (Republic of Vietnam) combat Communist insurgents known as ""Viet Cong."" Major American military involvement began in 1964, after Congress provided President Lyndon B. Johnson with blanket approval for presidential use of"
"75,000 men; 3) substantially expand the American military presence in Vietnam. Ultimately, President Johnson chose the third option and decided to 'Americanise' the Vietnam War, and by July 22 the U.S. military was authorised to raise its combat strength in Vietnam to 44 battalions. Thus, total U.S. military presence in Vietnam grew from 75,000 to 125,000 men, drawn mainly from the U.S. Army and the U.S. Marine Corps. Undeterred by this growing U.S. military strength, North Vietnamese leaders decided to match American commitments by increasing the number of their troops in South Vietnam, thereby escalating the war. Battle of Ba"
"the Vietnam War by United States Special Operations Forces and other elements of the U.S. Military. 1970 in the Vietnam War Operation Texas Star was a military operation of the Vietnam War in the A Shau Valley and the mountains east of the valley. It aimed at regaining the initiative in the area. The operation culminated in the Battle of Fire Support Base Ripcord. The Cambodian Campaign (also known as the Cambodian Incursion) was a series of military operations conducted in eastern Cambodia by the United States (U.S.) and the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) during the Vietnam War. A"
"Obama issued a proclamation of the . On November 10, 2017, President Donald Trump issued an additional . General: Vietnam War The Vietnam War (), also known as the Second Indochina War, and in Vietnam as the Resistance War Against America () or simply the American War, was a conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and the government of South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese army was supported by the Soviet"
"Cam Ne incident The Cam Ne incident was a Vietnam War incident involving U.S. military and South Vietnamese civilians that occurred at the village of Cam Ne in Quảng Nam Province, South Vietnam, and became one of the top news stories in the United States about the war. In the summer of 1965, U.S. Marines were patrolling southwest of the city of Da Nang. Units of the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines were operating around Cam Ne. On July 12, the Marines received fire from a Viet Cong (VC) force coming from the hamlet of Cam Ne 4 (numbered in order"
"history. The surprise relations between the communist-backed Viet Minh and the OSS, marked the beginning of the US involvement in Vietnam. Those days, the United States, sympathizing with Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh, had supported the group in order to overthrow the Japanese rule in Indochina. Later, Ho Chi Minh asked to set up alliance with the United States, in which was approved by Franklin D. Roosevelt with supports from Dwight Eisenhower, but after Roosevelt's sudden death, it had never been responded after Harry S. Truman came to power, and a series of incidents occurred in Vietnam, notably"
"during Nixon's presidency than during Johnson's. The U.S. incursion into Cambodia in May 1970 to eliminate North Vietnamese sanctuaries, the renewed bombing of North Vietnam and the mining of its harbors in the spring of 1972 in response to a North Vietnamese offensive, and another bombing campaign against the North in December 1972 brought widespread protest. Nixon's Vietnam policy, as well as that of previous administrations, suffered further criticism when, in June 1971, the Pentagon Papers, a highly classified narrative and documentary history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967, prepared at Secretary McNamara's order, was leaked and"
"public. But revelations of the My Lai Massacre, in which a U.S. Army platoon raped and killed civilians, and the 1969 ""Green Beret Affair"", where eight Special Forces soldiers, including the 5th Special Forces Group Commander, were arrested for the murder of a suspected double agent, provoked national and international outrage. In 1971 the ""Pentagon Papers"" were leaked to ""The New York Times"". The top-secret history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, commissioned by the Department of Defense, detailed a long series of public deceptions on the part of the U.S. government. The Supreme Court ruled that its publication was legal."
"assist in searching dwellings and communicating with civilians. Although the Pentagon considered censoring American journalists reporting from Vietnam, the plans were never adopted. Cam Ne incident The Cam Ne incident was a Vietnam War incident involving U.S. military and South Vietnamese civilians that occurred at the village of Cam Ne in Quảng Nam Province, South Vietnam, and became one of the top news stories in the United States about the war. In the summer of 1965, U.S. Marines were patrolling southwest of the city of Da Nang. Units of the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines were operating around Cam Ne. On"
"on an offshore island, one of these destroyers, the USS ""Maddox"", was reported to have come under attack by DRV naval patrol boats in the Gulf of Tonkin. There was a second alleged attack on August 4, which was later shown to be a falsehood. These attacks, and the ensuing naval actions, known as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, were seized upon by President Lyndon Johnson to secure passage by the U.S. Congress of the Southeast Asia Resolution (better known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution) on 7 August 1964, leading to a dramatic escalation of the Vietnam War. It"
"French defeat, it was renamed the MAAG Vietnam in 1955, as the United States became more deeply involved in what would come to be known as the Vietnam War. The next few years saw the rise of a Communist insurgency in South Vietnam, and President Diem looked increasingly to US military assistance to strengthen his position, albeit with certain reservations. Attacks on US military advisers in Vietnam became more frequent. On October 22, 1957, MAAG Vietnam and USIS installations in Saigon were bombed, injuring US military advisers. In the summer of 1959, Communist guerrillas staged an attack on a Vietnamese"